Learning joseki loses two stones strength

  Difficulty: Beginner   Keywords: Opening, Joseki, Proverb

Learning Joseki Loses Two Stones Strength - Studying Joseki gains four stones strength.

This often cited proverb is intended to visualise how learning Joseki by 'rote' is useless or even worse. The aim is not to be able to replay a sequence, but to understand what each move does and how this particular sequence affects the whole board.

Hence, studying Joseki does help you improve, because it increases your understanding of the game. However, see joseki/discussion for a lively debate on this.

Example

Fujisawa Hideyuki shows an example of where blindly following joseki is not good.

[Diagram]

Joseki but kikasare

White 1 - White 7 is joseki. However, White 7 is kikasare. It is too passive. White should make use of her strength on the left and play the boshi at a, as in the following diagram.

[Diagram]

Whole board thinking

White 1 is an example of leaning.


Further reading

External links


This is a copy of the living page "Learning joseki loses two stones strength" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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